I'm just saying it's very hard to proceed without some idea of what the work is, i.e. the task, the goal, the central thing you'll try to accomplish. It seems

I'm just saying it's very hard to proceed without some idea of what the work is, i.e. the task, the goal, the central thing you'll try to accomplish. It seems you're trying to build the team without knowing that yet, whereas I'm saying you might have to know it in order to build the team. Obviously it's a chicken-and-egg problem, and I also could be wrong, or even if right, it's not the only possible truth. But at the very least I can say that in my experience, once you know where you're headed, the team almost seems to build itself. On the other hand throwing a team together and collaboratively seeing where it wants to go, can work too... so long as no one involved hangs onto any of their preconceived notions and can get behind the group's new common direction. And hey, deciding that (i.e. the direction) can be more of an exploratory/creative thing, which as you say, also involves some work, but can also be fun. Here's hoping you do find some fun in it, like it's a rebirth process rather than something with a crisis-avoidance flavor, which is the effect of thinking about age discrimination and poverty and the like! Anyway good luck!